


Truth and Bone

by karrenia_rune



Category: Grimm (TV), Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 01:27:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14226114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune





	Truth and Bone

Prompt: from vexedwench (Grimm/Supernatural) Nick Burkhardt and Dean Winchester on a hunt

 

"Truth and Bone"

"What do you make of them? Dean asked, not without some irritation lacing through his voice. 

It had been at least eight months since he'd been in the Pacific Northwest, specifically the forestlands that bordered on the town limits of Portland and it did not do at well to go in without having someone along who knew the terrain. 

Why Sam had chosen not to come along, pleading some other errand, Dean figured Sam would tell him or he'd worm it out of him eventually.

"Wendigos, big ones to judge by the boot impressions? his local guide informed him.

Burkhardt kneeled in the soft loam of the forest floor, "Pardon me, for saying this, but what do you plan to do when you find these fugitives of yours?" he continued. "You don't really strike me as the bounty hunter type."

"That's on a need to know basis, Burkhardt," Dean smiled but it was more a baring of his even white teeth than an actual full friendly smile, "and you don't need to know." Dean was hoping that that would be enough to put the other man off the scent of what he'd been hunting

Nick Burkhardt was a tall, broad-shouldered man with open and honest blue eyes and an easy-going manner. 

Dean had often heard that the city of Portland was weird, and he'd put out feelers to that end, sifting through everything he'd heard; and after everything he'd and his brother had been through, it would not be all that strange to find werewolves here, but did he really just say wendigos?

"Yeah, but they tend to hunt in packs and most of the really dangerous ones were given the option to be incarcerated for life or shuffle off to Washington State."

"Incarcerated? 

"Yeah, it seems a few of them decided to experiment with the recipe for a certain stew, and well, let's just say it got really dicey for them a while back," Nick stated as he got up off the ground.

Dean considered this for a moment as he shuffled the toes of his leather boots in the ground, mulling over everything he'd ever heard or learned about wendigos, although if that's what they really after then they were a long way from home, because, in Algonquian folklore, the Wendigo or windigo is a mythical cannibal monster or evil spirit native to the northern forests of the Atlantic Coast and Great Lakes Region of both the United States and Canada."

"The Wendigo may appear as a monster with some characteristics of a human, or as a spirit who has possessed a human being and made them become monstrous. It is historically associated with cannibalism, murder, insatiable greed, and the cultural taboos against such behaviors."

 

"I guess we'd better get going." Burkhardt got up and darted a significant glance over at Dean. For someone who's in the bounty hunter business you seem to know an awful late about native folklore," he remarked once they were on the way again.

Dean shrugged, "It's a hobby."

"Interesting hobby? Don't suppose you've published any of these insights in a scholarly journal?"

"No, why do you ask?"

Nick shrugged. "No reason."

The forest in many places was still covered in snow two feet deep and only the limbs of the evergreen trees. Dean was thankful that he had thought to bring along cold weather gear, and was crunching along in the snow-packed ground. 

In a couple of places, he misjudged his step and went sliding a shallow defile and Burkhardt had to help him out. For his part, Nick did not seem to have as difficult a time over the snowy terrain. It might be that was more familiar with the area, or it might have been something else entirely; whatever that 'mysterious' something was, Dean split half his attention trying to decipher it, and the other half watching his footing.

 

The sun at their back was just slipping towards the tree-line when they came upon the shabby and dilapidated cabin that their quarry had chosen as a hide-out. Nick vaguely remembered it from when he'd cornered them here a year or so back. 

The outward appearance of the cabin had not improved one white in the intervening time. It still looked like the land had swallowed it whole, chewed it up and spit it out again. The roof sagged, the porch had holes in it, and what door it had sagged on its hinges. A distinct aroma of bone and rotten wood and dry blood exuded from it.

"There may not be much left to find," Dean remarked. "Since you mentioned it, something had occurred to me..."

"What?" 

"In historical accounts of Wendigo psychosis, it has been reported that humans became possessed by the Wendigo spirit, after being in a situation of needing food and having no other choice besides cannibalism."

"I don't think we're dealing with a spirit," Nick opined. "How many spirits do you know who leave footprints?"

"One of the more famous cases of Wendigo psychosis reported involved a Plains Cree trapper from Alberta, named Swift Runner. During the winter of 1878, Swift Runner and his family were starving, and his eldest son died. Twenty-five miles away from emergency food supplies at a Hudson's Bay Company post, Swift Runner butchered and ate his wife and five remaining children. Given that he resorted to cannibalism so near to food supplies, and that he killed and consumed the remains of all those present, it was revealed that Swift Runner's was not a case of pure cannibalism as a last resort to avoid starvation, but rather of a man with Wendigo psychosis. He eventually confessed and was executed by authorities at Fort Saskatchewan."

"Interesting hypothesis," Nick allowed.

Dean shrugged and rolled his shoulders to loosen tight muscles,"Only one way to find out, I guess." and began to walk towards the front door.

Nick sighed, and went after him.

Dean had opened the door and edged his way inside the reek intensified, Nick pulled up the collar of his shirt to cover his nose, but it wasn't much better that way either.

There was a pile of bones and bodies covered by a tarp and tied with leather straps, and upon their approach, something began to move underneath the tarp; either in dire need to get loose, or as if it were writhing in pain. 

Dean drew a knife from his belt and went over to the tarp and cut the leather straps.

A man rolled out and over and he stared directly at them, but even though he was staring in their direction he did not seem to see them at all; but only a scene from his own imagining that rendered him frozen in terrror.

"Well, look at the bright side, Burkhardt, at least he's no attacking us," Dean remarked.

"I doubt he even knows we're here," Nick replied.

Just then Nick's cellphone began to ring, and as he went to answer it, or perhaps silence the ringing, it broke the spell that the other man had been under.

"Dammit! Dean swore, "Now you've done it!"

Nick took his phone out of his pocket and hit the mute button, but did not put it away completely. "You never know, we might need to call for back-up."

"Who would we call?"

"Portland PD, I told them we would be out for about two-three-hours tops."

"You told the police?"

"Of course, otherwise my partner will start to get worried about me."

"Wait, you're a cop?" Dean was angry, angry that he hadn't known this beforehand, although of course if he'd been being paying better attention he probably should have; but it was too late to do anything about it now.

The inhabitant of the cabin began to rock back and forth on his heels, the mad, glazed look in his eyes never leaving him completely. 

At one point he stretched out his arms as if he were trying to embrace something. After about forty fivve minutes of this he began to take several shaky steps towards Nick and Dean his arms held out from his sides. He jolting, lurching approaching brought him within arms' reach of Dean and clasped in a bear-hug.

"Get him the hell offa me!" Dean roared.

"It could just be an innocent bear-hug" Nick opined mock-severely.

"Yeah, and this maniac could be looking to make his next meal!"

Nick reached out and grabbed the man by his thin shoulders and heaved., flinging him to the ground with more strength than Dean had given him credit for; but he could not afford to examine the matter any further for their assailant was already getting up off the floor.

Dean saw an opening, and acting before he could think better of it, drew, aimed and fired his own. 38 caliber pistol, the bullets tearing into him.

When there was no further movement Dean walked over and knelt down by the unmoving body.

"Dead?" he asked as if there were any doubt.

"Dead," Nick confirmed. "Help me bury him, will you?"

"Why?" Dean demanded.

"If nothing else it will help prevent the spread of more prosaic infections."

"Fine, Fine," Dean agreed and together they found a winding sheet in the cabin that was cleaner than the others, rolled the body into it and carried it out to the yard, burying the body six feet under.

With that unpleasant task done they went over to a nearby creek and washed their hands and faces in clean running water. 

"Not quite what you expected, Mr. Winchester?" Nick asked as they began to head back into town.  
mentioned curses, and legends and stuff, you didn't even bat an eyelash?"

Nick grinned and replied: "You'd be surprised at what you might find around these parts. You're welcome to stick around some more if you want, as long as you don't plan on bagging every baddie you come across."

"What? Are you some kind of preservationist?"

"No, no, but if you don't mind me quoting your own words back at you, "that's on a need to know basis, and you, Mr. Winchester, don't need to know."

"Smart-ass, Burkhardt, you'd get along with my brother."

"Not quite, but that there's still one thing about all this I don't understand," Dean replied.

"Which is?"

"How come whenever I mentioned beasties and legends and ancient spirits you didn't even bat an eyelash," Dean asked

Nick smiled as he trotted along, the sun just coming up over the horizon providing much-needed warmth and light. "You could stick around and find out."

"Oh, really?" Dean replied.

"But, let's have an understanding that you won't be planning on bagging and tagging every beastie you come across, nothing everything around here goes bump in the night, goes bump in the night if you understand me."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dean demanded.

"Not much, just to use your own words: that's on a need to know basis and you don't need to know." Nick smiled, "I think I will let you puzzle that one out."


End file.
